Illusion
by LachwenII
Summary: The illusion hangs from the edge of nothing.


Music: Set Fire to the Rain

A/N: Okay, next chapter of Present Past is ¾ written. Until then, here's a short piece from the universe of the 2nd prompt I'm working on (Thor has _eaten my brain_). Do not own anything, because then Loki would get his happy ending (although he still will here, if I have anything to say about it ^_^).

The illusion hangs from the edge of nothing. It distracts his brother, and Loki almost laughs at the absurdity – because he hasn't been afraid of _dying _in years, and his brother really doesn't know him at all if he thinks Loki would _ever _beg when he knows quite well what he's done. Why ask for less than what he's already given? _All _of Jotunheim will perish this day, and he's almost grateful of that fact. (It's always been the living that terrifies him).

Well, what Thor doesn't know can hurt him. Or, so Loki hopes – if it wasn't _all _a lie. (Just in case, he would have been much happier leaving his brother on Earth. But with all the protections he's woven into his own skin over the years, Mjolnir wielded by his brother really is one of the only things that can get the job done right – he'd never thought he'd _need _to weave protections against the hammer, luckily enough). It stings, he admits this freely: that even for this he is forced to rely on his older brother (and Thor will_ always _be 'brother', even if Loki will never be so again). Yet Loki has never been but thorough, and if he can't even diewithout his brother's aid then at least he'll still be _dead_. He'd like to see them wrest anything_ else_ from his corpse. (Father might try; he always did hate it when his tools broke). But he'll have paid all the blood in a _world_ - and if that's not enough then he doesn't know what will ever be. Which might just be the most comical thing of all. (But it would be (almost) ever so much _more _hilarious, if his brother ruins this). Enough to make Loki truly _want _to kill him.

Besides, that's how this all started, isn't it? He should have known better than to base a plan on what he _thought _Thor would do. Should have known Thor would be stupid enough to start a warinstead of merely an argument (although in the doing so he did prove Loki's point, the point he has tried to make his _entire life_ and failed. He doesn't _want_ to be king; he spoke the truth. But Thor _is not ready_). And it would be sheer irony for Thor to start believing in monsters _now_. (Of course, his big brother hasn't even noticed Loki's been holding back; keeping this fight simple in a way he hasn't since he first picked up a knife (mostly – he _does _have to make this look real. His brother has always had problems fighting those he considers weaker than him and no matter how many times Loki slips through his guard in training or saves his life in battle, Loki will always be the "weaker" one and Thor _will _act accordingly)). Thor always holds back. Loki, never: he's always _had _to go all out to merely make a dentin that smug armor that is his brother's second skin. So maybe it's not_ so_ surprising that Thor doesn't recognize what Loki is leading him towards, hasn't yet figured out the grand finale of this wholestupid farce. It just makes things that much more difficult (and if nothing else, Thor is _always _difficult).

And he's almost forgotten, in the years since he's been little more than a shadow to Thor's triumph against the world, how _pig-headed_ his brother can be. By rights, Loki _should _be dead by now. The Bifrost can no longer be stopped, and there's nothing left to wait for - it's not even as if he's really been trying; there have been plenty of holes in his defense that his brother should have made use of. Which means Thor's _still_ holding back on him. And no matter how many times he does, no matter how used to it Loki should be, his brother's stubborn refusal to see him always hits Loki right where it hurts the most. And as his rage rises, Loki silently_ swears_ that Thor will win this fight, even if Loki has to _cram the win down his _throat. (Winning's never done a damn bit of good against Thor anyways). Thor will take this battle, and when he does Loki will have engineered the end to their private war (no rematches allowed). It's the best he's going to get, and he'll take it.

Besides, even if he _wanted_ to try and win this straight out, it's unlikely he could: his thoughts keep scattering and shifting, the possibilities refusing to settle into that strategy that the part of his mind that _isn't _still in denial (and any idiot can tell you what denial can do to a mind that's used to manipulating the very fabric of reality on a day-to-day basis. It isn't pretty, any more than this is - you _need _something stable, something that cannot change and will not melt away no matter what words you speak) can use. His sorcery is the same, swimming through his head in random whorls and eddies - elusive and (except for those few short bursts) as unreachable as the first fog when he was nine and still grasping for what he _knew_ but had not _known_. So he hasn't gone for the easy wins (spearwork is _speed_ above all else – the sniper of the great weapons. But apparently Thor thinks he's too cowardly and distraught to even remember his forms, and he's _not _going to think of how much that hurts), and instead waits for the opportune moment to lose. (It's sneaky, it's underhanded, and it's everything they've tried to beat out of him over the years but never (quite) succeeded. It's _Loki_, and he wonders if Thor will ever figure out the punch line to the joke).

Yes, Thor _still_ hasn't noticed, bless his stubborn heart. Still trying to _save _him – and how he's _any_ different than any of the other "monsters" they've killed over the years, the ones he's killing now (he's even going to beat Thor's record with this last stunt) and that Thor would have gloried over just days prior, he'd like someone to tell him. _He really would_. (He's even considered dropping the glamour, just to see Thor's face when he realizes the truth. _Forcing _him to come face to face with the trickster once and for all stripped of everything but the truth and to see how they like him _then_). Still, the whole pointis to die as an Asgardian - to make his not- father _see_. Because _whatever _he was born as, he _is_ Odin'sson now. (He's _sorry _for getting angry – he's sorry for _everything_, and if Odin will just wake up then maybe he'll see what Loki has done and it will be enough (he has nothing more to give)). It would be a good thing, if there were no more monsters, right? Thor has told him that often enough, and if no one likes Loki then he can still try being someone different, try being Thor instead (even if he _can't_). (If he can keep on telling himself that for just all little longer, he'll never have to believe it ever again). This will show them _all_ (he hopes), show them in the only way he has been able think up (Loki is a liar and a thief, a shadow-skulker who prefers (reasonably, he would have said) to avoid honorable combat; and they might be right not to trust his words when he's just a monster but he _still needs them to know_). He's still _one of them_ (even if he _never was_). He _has _to be.

And so he can't quite bring himself to do this last thing: the God of Lies finds himself bound at last - and by a chain of his own forging. The irony alone should be enough to kill him, you might think. (Maybe Odin will _never _tell Thor, maybe Thor will never have to know and maybe that hope freezes in Loki's veins; but it is that, the traitorous part of his soul that refuses to live in a world where _brother _is a lie and _jotun _(no, not even that; a monster even the other _monsters _refused) is a truth, that part begs at least for death by Thor's hand). _If_ his brother will just stop being an idiot and _act _already (usually the problem is getting him to _stop_). He's actually about ready to stop hamming it up and start really _threatening _his brother when Thor _finally_ takes advantage of his distraction and Loki finds himself flat on his back, limbs and ears ringing from Mjolnir's thunder. _And I thought you were getting _slow_, brother dearest. _He's almost temped to make time for a quip; something about Thor and his old age. But that would completely ruin the mood he's taken such pains to create (he wants to do the thing _right_, and just because Thor can't appreciate it doesn't mean Loki should ignore the aesthetics in what will have to become his magnum opus, hasty though it has been in the planning), and Loki finds he would prefer to (just this once) stay silent. (He's always said he would go down laughing – after all, if he's dead, the game's over and as long as he's laughing he's still _won_. But it appears that was just another lie he told himself (and he never expected to be courting Mjolnir in _quite _this fashion).

But then Thor stays his hand. Which was _not _part of the plan. And the idea that he might actually live through this terrifies him; freezes in his soul until the very words needed to goad his brother into finishing things once and for all (he's always been so easy to manipulate in some regards) fall unspoken from his lips. (Thor will win after all. Even _this_, he will take). Instead, he lies there, waiting for a blow that never comes; with his brother's hammer (a gift, one Loki had paid blood in the crafting of, but he had never cared and he wonders if Thor remembers but thinks he does not) on his chest and knows that if his brother had planned this he could not have been more cruel.

But he speaks far too soon. Thor does _worse_: face set, he turns his back on Loki (safely pinned, everyone and their pet horse _knows _he's not worthy to pick up the damn hammer, and at any other time Loki would be applauding his strategy (because for Thor, it is a _masterpiece_ of thought, maybe the dolt will survive without him yet)) and walks back towards Jotenheim_._ Loki's breath catches, and he tells himself it's the weight of the hammer but knows it is a lie. He is more insignificant even then he had feared, then – worth less even than _jotun_ in his brother's eyes (and that is little enough that it might not be counted at all). 'Loki' does not (perhaps has _never_) mattered to Thor, and he wonders absently why it hurts when it's only the truth. So Thor turns away, and something in Loki's chest breaks with a shuddering *snap*- but it does not hurt nearly as much as the look of dismissal in his bro-in _Thor's _eyes when his brother calls back the hammer and leaves him alive behind him.

Loki loses track of what happens next. Thor never has learned how to watch his back, he really should one of these days (Loki thought he had more time to teach him, he'll have to leave that to Sif and hope she doesn't _screw it up_). He thinks he charges his brother, and then an explosion tears the world away from him. He has just time to curse Thor for a fool (Asgard needs _one _heir left alive, his brother _never thinks_ about these things), and then Loki is hanging over the edge of eternity with his brother's grip on Gungnir the only thing keeping him (again) from all but certain death. Time speeds up as Loki looks at his father, so suddenly alive and before them (he came for Thor, he always _does _and Loki was counting on it but he still wishes he'd been wrong), and cries something desperate (he does not know what). The abyss steals his father's reply, but now Loki can _see _himself (the liar) reflected in that familiar eye and it changes _everything_. He could be saved, he thinks (despair sharpening into something useful, something to pry and prod and _find_).

Odin might still have some use for his jotun bastard; Loki could go back. He could continue the deception – his silver tongue has to be good for _something_. All he would have to do is just has to pretend that everything _is_ fine, that his sudden ascension to the throne has driven him temporarily insane. (But Loki is a liar, and the truth sits bitter on his tongue). He can have them all again - at least as much as he has ever had them. And in this moment he realizes: thatis the _one thing_ he will not (cannot) give them. Besides, the cataclysm he has created (and that his brother has stopped; hero as always (even a hero to the _monsters _and maybe Thor couldn't help it any more than Loki could but it _still hurts_) will surely be more than enough to finish this. Is it not most fitting, if he is not even worthy of death dealt by one of the few people (liars) he would have died_ for_? (It _is _poetic, at least, and Odin is the God of (among other things) poetry; perhaps he will find it pleasing).

So Loki falls. He watches his brother's face, waits for the moment when Thor realizes (slowly, dim as ever but he's _trying_ and that counts for something) that something's wrong; as that foolish, giddy grin starts to fade. Loki tries to convey (without words; he used those up long ago, and if his brother refuses to see past the illusions of reality that Thor has cast within his own mind (they have ever been stronger even than those Loki could conjure with his spells), it has never been as important a failing as it is right now) that this time_, Loki will _not _let him save them all_;_ that he might have nothing else, but he will _take _nothing else either_. (He would rather _die _than be saved (again) by the one person who has _always _beaten him (and always will)). And he _will not _let Thor take that from him and carry them all off into some distant sunset only to be forgotten in the shadows again when the adrenaline fades. And for once, Thor even seems to get it. (His brother gets a silver chalice for effort, Loki decides, saved from gold only by the fact that his sudden understanding is still far, far too late to do any good). This will be a good object lesson for when Thor is king; a final gift to the one who could have been his brother. And the best gifts always seem to have blood attached to them, so this will be a _particularly fine _one, worthy to be his coronation present to the man who could yet one day become Asgard's finest king.

Perhaps he even means something to the oaf after all. Loki hasn't heard Thor make quite that category of sound since the day he'd discovered someonehad melted the head of his brand new (_first ever_) battleaxe to the wall with a few well-placed fireballs. That _is_ a fine memory - he almost smiles. It had been the first time Thor had declared he was a warrior grown and no longer needed to play with girly, _weakling_ little brothers ever again; Loki had been perhaps a trifle overset. (It had also - if he recalls correctly, and he _does _- been the reason for commissioning Mjolnir. And _everything _had been worth it, when Thor had seen his present (and started speaking to him again)). Funny, though: he'd always planned on getting a more suitable version made when Thor was ready for the throne. (For reasons of their own, the dwarves had taken his childish drawing at face valuedespite that he had _obviously_ had no idea whatsoever for proper proportions of such a tool; it had made it even more enjoyable to cheat them of their prize, but he'd still truly wanted it to be a _proper _present). He'd even been planning to _pay_ this time – he had the money (or could get it easily enough) and the dwarves would have been enjoyably twitchy for _years _wondering what his game was (which would have_ been _the game and well worth the price).

Well, it can't be helped now. The gift he_ can_ give will have to be enough – and since all his life he's reached past his limits for them, just this once he will give what he _has _instead of what he can _get_. The thought makes him smile for real, face stretching oddly even for the God of Mischief (they call him that, but he suspects that that, too, is simply a lie: when he laughs, he is always alone). Thor will have to get his own hammer when he grows tired of Mjolnir. (But there's something inside of Loki that feels as if he's no longer (quite) made of ice; and he has a memory to take with him into the darkness. It will be enough, more than repayment (he wishes he'd gotten the new hammer made after all)). It is past time for this curtain to drop, and Loki is _tired_ of staying where he is not welcome. He has found the key to what he had thought long misplaced, which will make this next part (without Thor) so much easier. He sinks himself into his memories; sends himself back, back to being (almost, Thor! _Almost_-) three hundred (when the most important thing _in the_ _universe _was making his big brother smile (at him)). And even if his face no longer remembers the motions, his heart still smiles at his brother's laughter. Warm for the first time in centuries, Loki lets go. He uncurls his fingers from the spear, and holds onto his memories through the eternity of time and space - until at long last he hits the vortex and the only thing he can keep is his scream.


End file.
